A man was looking at all the different animals behind the circus tent. As he was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.
He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”
The man was amazed. These animals could at any time easily break free from their bonds but because theywere convinced that they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.
Like the elephants, many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we had failed at it before? We become enslaved to the idea that we are not able to break free of whatever is tying us down. We fail to remember that failure is only a part of our learning process. And we should never give up the struggle in our lives to break free of whatever is restraining us or holding us down.